1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to database searching, and more particularly, searching for a record in a database that best matches a given inquiry related to personal identity that may include both expected and unexpected data attributes, and retrieving the record that best matches the inquiry along with actionable feedback that explains the match experience and result.
2. Description of the Related Art
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, the approaches described in this section may not be prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Efficient database access and searching capabilities are important for effective utilization of data that is maintained in referential databases for matching purposes. Crucial to this objective is an ability to enable efficient retrieval of a match result, i.e., a result of matching reference data to an inquiry that includes personal indicia both anticipated as part of the inquiry as well as previously unknown indicia, to identify and select match results in an efficient and effective manner, and to provide actionable feedback that can be used to make business decisions regarding the use of the match results such as for ongoing effective data stewardship.
Specific to identifying an individual, existing technology considers a specific and finite number of data fields such as given names, surnames, physical and email addresses, titles, and aliases, or a set of undefined data components that may or may not include information related to an individual. This existing technology is generally based on character-for-character or mathematical heuristic comparisons, which yield opinions of accuracy based on a number of characters matched or other basic correlative information, after accounting for allowable orthographic variations, such as multiple ways of spelling a specific word, as well as the use of hyphenation, capitalization, word-breaks, punctuation, known abbreviations, and synonyms. In addition, the existing technology assumes a specific structure of inquiry data, and does not allow for a finite but temporally unbounded collection of high-value, predictive data elements or other derived indicia, associated to an individual, and that have been validated and synthesized or aggregated into a database of individuals, to be used through the match process.